It is very remarkable that there were no lawyers to challenge the legality of such laws as the above, which found their way into the statute books of all the New-England colonies. There could he no conditional emancipation. If a slave were set at liberty, why he was free, and, if he afterwards became a pauper, was entitled to the same care as a white freeman. But it is not difficult to see that the status of a free Negro was difficult of definition. When the Negro slave grew old and infirm, his master no longer cared for him, and the public was protected against him by law. Death was his most beneficent friend. In October, 1743, a widow lady named Comfort Taylor, of Bristol County, Massachusetts Bay, sued and obtained judgment against a Negro named Cuff Borden for two hundred pounds, and cost of suit "for a grievous trespass." Cuff was a slave. An ordinary execution would have gone against his person: he would have been imprisoned, and nothing more. In view of this condition of affairs, Mrs. Taylor petitioned the General Assembly of Rhode Island, praying that authority be granted the sheriff to sell Cuff, as other property, to satisfy the judgment. The Assembly granted her prayer as follows:-- "Upon consideration whereof, it is voted and resolved, that the sheriff of the said county of Newport, when he shall receive the execution against the said negro Cuff, be, and he is hereby fully empowered to sell said negro Cuff as other personal estate: and after the fine of L20 be paid into the general treasury, and all other charges deducted out of the price of said negro, the remainder to be appropriated in said satisfying said execution."[471] This case goes to show that in Rhode Island Negro slaves were rated, at law, as chattel property, and could be taken in execution to satisfy debts as other personal property. A great many slaves availed themselves of frequent opportunities of going away in privateers and other vessels. With but little before them in this life, they were even willing to risk being sold into slavery at some other place, that they might experience a change. They made excellent seamen, and were greatly desired by masters of vessels. This went on for a long time. The loss to the colony was great; and the General Assembly passed the subjoined bill as a check to the stampede that had become quite general:-- "AN ACT TO PREVENT THE COMMANDERS OF PRIVATEERS, OR MASTERS OF ANY OTHER VESSELS, FROM CARRYING SLAVES OUT OF THIS COLONY. "Whereas, it frequently happens that the commanders of privateers, and masters of other vessels, do carry off slaves that are the property of inhabitants of this colony, and that without the privity or consent of their masters or mistresses; and whereas, there is no law of this colony for remedying so great an evil,--